Starting From Scratch

[dlmorgan999]

I forgot to mention that I'm planning to "daisy-chain" some of my security detectors from the OmniPro II to the Stargate. This will allow me to use motion detectors and door/window contacts to directly trigger Stargate events.

-- Dave

 

[IVB]

I haven't been able to picture how door cameras would display using redradio touch screens.

My understanding is RedRadio displays whatever is being shown on the PC. You would just simply display the camera feed and the RedRadio would display what is showing...

I think they display 1/8 of what is displayed on the PC screen and you have to control what is in each octant so it looks right on each touch screen. Or did I misunderstand the way it works?

Actually, I *think* that the way CQC works, it's infinitely easier than this. You just startup multiple instances of the interface viewer on the host PC, then load whatever template you want. Roughly 3.4 gazillion times easier than this "controlling via octants" concept.

Here's the snippet from the CQC.supported_devices page about the RedRad I/O

@ECHO OFF
SETLOCAL
SET CQC_USERNAME=Bubba
SET CQC_PASSWORD=Bubbalicious
CQCIntfView /RadIO=1
CQCIntfView /RadIO=2
CQCIntfView /RadIO=3
CQCIntfView /RadIO=4
CQCIntfView /RadIO=5 /Load=\User\RadIOZ5
CQCIntfView /RadIO=6 /Load=\User\RadIOZ6
CQCIntfView /RadIO=7 /Load=\User\RadIOZ7
CQCIntfView /RadIO=8

The RADIOZ5 is the template name. It could just as easily have been:
CQCIntfView /RadIO=5 /Load=\User\Camera5
CQCIntfView /RadIO=6 /Load=\User\Camera6

Where camera5 is a template that's been coded to bring up the CCTV for #5. If it's a web-browser enabled CCTV, you could have a template that basically just has a web browser widget, pulling up an HTML page dedicated to showing only camera#5. Make sense?


Also in that approach, it assumes panels 1-4, 8 will pull up the default template for username=bubba. For example, I have a username called "touch" for my 3400's, and they default to my VladStudio_Wrapper template as that's what I want to see first there.

 

[upstatemike]

Dave-

Thanks for all the detailed info! I'm going to ponder your post over the weekend and then I'll certainly have a few follow up questions.

 

[ver0776]

Come on poppa Mike. If you adopt me and let me live in your castle I will code you custom HA apps 24x7 =)

I know 37 is a little old to adopt, but I assure you I am very childish on the inside!

Ok, CQC may be cheaper... but having dedicated staff is soo cool =>

Vaughn

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

How much would your "maintenance" fee be Vaughn?

 

[upstatemike]

Come on poppa Mike. If you adopt me and let me live in your castle I will code you custom HA apps 24x7 =)

I know 37 is a little old to adopt, but I assure you I am very childish on the inside!

Ok, CQC may be cheaper... but having dedicated staff is soo cool =>

Vaughn

Forget coding. I'll just have you run around the house turning things on and off based on voice commands!

 

[roussell]

HouseBot has all kinds of logging options. In fact this is probably a good time to talk a bit more about it. I've been using it for several years (since just before Meedio bought it). Even though it's not the most current technology (it's written in Visual C++ 6.0 and not .NET) it's still VERY well written. The original author (Scott Leonard) has always provided excellent support - even when Meedio owned the product. When they went belly-up he bought the product back from them and he's now working on the next upgrade.

I've been trying Housebot on and off for a while and I have to admit that I really like it. It comes very close to the other GUI offerings but at a fraction of the price. My biggest hangup was trying to get video streams to display on the clients. The best I was able to come up with was still images updates every x seconds. I think somebody got motion to work by overlaying a transparent window on top of zoomplayer or winamp or something and while that may work it seems a little hokey IMHO. I have that same setup now with Xlobby and was wanting to get away from it. My current setup is Misterhouse for automation, zoneminder for the cams and Xlobby for a front-end. It all works well together, but I'd love to consolidate as much as possible, I'm going to download Maillobby/MLserver3 this weekend and give it a try. I've already eliminated HomeSeer for various reasons, and sadly due to the price increase of CQC have to do the same there Although I've really been doing the hard sell to my wife for CQC, I don't think there's any way she's going to give in before midnight.

At any rate, thanks for the great write up of your system, Housebot in particular. There isn't a lot of activity on the HB site and very few people share their setups. You're right on about Scott, he has totally devoted himself to the app and it shows. HB is one of the most stable windows apps I have personally used.

Terry

 

[upstatemike]

I have three in-wall security keypads connected to my OmniPro II. I'm not sure what you mean by "access control keypad" but if you are referring to something like proximity detectors then I'm afraid to say that the OmniPro II doesn't support anything like that "out of the box". That's one area that I like better on the Elk M1.

The OmniPro II has a full phone interface. Right now I have it tied in *before* the phone system using an RJ-31X. I may move it to a spare CO port though in the future. You can do almost anything you want via the phone interface if needed.

The HAI access control or "outdoor" keypad is a stainless steel, weatherproof, piezoelectric keypad that connects to the system through a serial port.

On the phone interface, are you talking about touch tone control? I assume you are not using the OmniPro II to page through the Panasonic for voice announcements since you are having Stargate do that. Can an OmniPro do any dial out stuff beyond simple alarm reporting?

 

[dlmorgan999]

On the phone interface, are you talking about touch tone control? I assume you are not using the OmniPro II to page through the Panasonic for voice announcements since you are having Stargate do that. Can an OmniPro do any dial out stuff beyond simple alarm reporting?

Yes, I'm talking about touchtone control. It's a complete implementation but I don't use any of it since I can do all the same things using touchscreens via my HouseBot driver. And no, the OmniPro can't do any dial out except alarm reporting.

 

[dlmorgan999]

At any rate, thanks for the great write up of your system, Housebot in particular. There isn't a lot of activity on the HB site and very few people share their setups. You're right on about Scott, he has totally devoted himself to the app and it shows. HB is one of the most stable windows apps I have personally used.

Terry

Although you are right that there's not much day-to-day activity on the HouseBot forums, there is a wealth of knowledge in the various posts that have been made over the last few years. The are a few useful features in HouseBot that aren't really documented but they get discussed in some of the posts. The forum search tool is a good friend of mine

I agree that I'd like to see more sharing of setups. Part of the issue is that there's not currently any place to upload things like that. The other issue is that due to the way HouseBot works internally it can sometimes be a bit challenging to share a complete configuration.

You can easily share a "theme" (this is the HouseBot name for the GUI portion of a software remote). This lets other users see your "look". The problem is that another user can really *use* your remote (the "feel") unless they have all the same devices installed on their system that you reference in your theme.

On the other hand, HouseBot has a very nice export feature that allows you to share most anything you want to (devices, themes, tasks, etc). In the past when I've wanted to share something I made a copy of one of my themes and removed all the things that were specific to my devices. Then I did an export and others were able to check it out.

As for support, Scott is absolutely amazing in that respect. He's been known to do an update or fix for a reported problem in as little as a day or two. I also agree with you - the current version is *very* stable. A little while back I was doing an "uptime" test. I had it running for 32 days in my *very* active configuration (software remotes with touchscreens in five locations) and it never went down. I finally had to shut it down so I could install an update that Scott released. If I hadn't shut it down I suspect it would still be running continuously today.

I made a good post on the HouseBot forum that details more of the things I'm doing with my installation. I would include a post to it here but the HouseBot forums seem to be down right now . I'll post the link when the forums are back.

-- Dave

 

[upstatemike]

I'm currently using ViewSonic ViewPads for user interface in some rooms. These are 10" Windows CE tablets and I've installed CF wireless cards. In the "main" rooms I'm using Dell 15" touchscreens connected to dedicated PCs. I don't really like the fact that I need dedicated PCs but I *really* like the large size and they have lots of "real estate" (1024 x 768). I've recently seen posts here about the UTMA stuff and they sound interesting. I may consider one or more of those mounted in-wall in the new house.

I have a number of screens in HouseBot that allow me to control each thermostat, run "buttons" (macros) on the OmniPro II, change security mode, etc. I also have predefined lighting "modes" in my two viewing areas - things like "Conversation" (100%), "Intermission" (about 50%) and "Viewing" (about 10%). In addition I can turn individual lights on and off and even vary the levels from a HouseBot remote (although this function currently doesn't work as well as I would like but that's due to the fact that my OmniPro II --> HouseBot interface isn't really finished yet).

This is where I think I would have trouble following your path. I have not found a PC based touch screen solution that I am comfortable with yet. They all seem to have one or more of the following problems:

-Would require the touch screen to be a PC or would require multiple 24/7 PCs just to run the touch screens.

-Have some massive wiring harness requirement such as vga+power+serial OR Ethernet+power+video feed from cameras OR whatever. I would prefer a single cable solution.

-Are not surface mountable (unless you hack something together which I won't do for 6 screens)

-Are crazy expensive (not even counting the PCs that drive them).



The main things that attracted me to the HAI "OmniTouch with Video" are:

*The logic to display door cameras on the screens whenever the doorbell rings is built into the system.

*They will display Russound RNet data so I can let people turn on the radio, scan radio stations by frequency, and then set the volume in all locations from one central screen. (The point being I don't have to let them touch any source equipment).

*Menus for security, lighting, and HVAC are all automatic just by adding those devices to the system.

*Surface mountable and runs off of 1 cat5 cable.

*About $725 per screen.

 

[CFGuy]

Not that I am anywhere near close to doing this, but for the cameras, I had thought about putting each camera on a modulator and then when motion was detected have HS send the IR to put my tv in pip mode and display the channel that the camera is outputting on.
That would save you having so much trouble finding a way to display the cameras on a touchscreen.

Not sure if you had thought of this and already ruled it out.

 

[upstatemike]

Not that I am anywhere near close to doing this, but for the cameras, I had thought about putting each camera on a modulator and then when motion was detected have HS send the IR to put my tv in pip mode and display the channel that the camera is outputting on.
That would save you having so much trouble finding a way to display the cameras on a touchscreen.

Not sure if you had thought of this and already ruled it out.

I did think of it as an additional display but the TV isn't usually on so it wouldn't be much use most of the time. The scenario that is most common is during the day when a delivery person might ring the doorbell and I want to glance at who is at the door so I can decide to answer it, page someone else to answer it, or maybe even ignore it till they go away.

 

[upstatemike]

The many touch screen discussions don't seem to be leading anyplace so this is my current iteration of a strategy:

CORE SYSTEM

OmniPro II
-Fire
-Security
-OEM Touchscreens with Camera Display Option
-Touchscren control of nuvo zoned sound
-UPB and X-10 (or Insteon in X-10 mode)
-DTMF control
-digital inputs
-relays
-Door access keypad
-Thermostats

Homeseer + Way to Call
-paging through phone system
-VR through phones
-Caller ID
-TTS
-Weather Station Interface
-Weather forecasts from Internet
-IR
-Insteon
-wav file sounds

OUTSIDE OF CORE SYSTEM

MainLobby
HT control (if required)
Other touchscreen options (if required)